


and the waves call my name

by doublelead



Category: THE iDOLM@STER: SideM
Genre: Canon Compliant, Character Study, M/M, Pre-Canon, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-12
Updated: 2019-08-12
Packaged: 2020-08-19 23:20:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20217940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/doublelead/pseuds/doublelead
Summary: "I wonder if I should introduce you to my grandparents..."It's the winter of their second year as idols. Jirou stops mid-way, his chopstick full of mochi hanging awkwardly between his open mouth and the bowl ofzenzaiin his hand.None of them are actually turned towards the television screen, where Dramatic Stars are performing at theKouhaku Uta Gassen.Jirou's old rickety kotatsu clicks and whirrs for dear life."Huh?" he asks.





	and the waves call my name

**Author's Note:**

> It's still Rui Day, somewhere in the world.
> 
> Probably.
> 
> (it's always rui day everyday for me)

"I guess, in a way, we're similar like that, Maita-sensei."

At a windowsill's distance, the shadow of its frame on the linoleum floor fills the space between them.

Rui turns, from his fingers padding together, up to Jirou's exasperated, lopsided smile.

Somehow, he feels another world away.

"You're a lot better at hiding it than I am, though." Jirou's breath puffs white, billows back against his cheek, this close to the outside air.

The blinds right behind Rui are drawn closed. He wonders if the redness under his eyes would have been hidden the same way, otherwise.

Still, he could insist it nothing else but purely an overflow of pride, the aftermath of seeing his first batch of students graduate.

_'I hope they'd remember me fondly,'_ he remembers muttering. Idle musings, initially, just a scant few seconds before his vision had started to blur.

The next thing he knows, he had found himself stopping mid-turn, at the corner down the hall, a few steps away from Jirou's science prep room.

His sleeves are still slightly damp.

He steps on a stray droplet of water, smears it gone across the floor.

"And, honestly? I would have thought it intentional." There's a the crease between Jirou's brows, his voice almost a whisper, fond, the way he remembers his grandpa would sound, whenever he finds Rui acting just a little bit silly. "I guess I was wrong. I'm sorry."

Rui watches Jirou play with the hem of his own sleeves, pressing down on the darkened stains with his thumb. It's small ― inconsequential, even ― but he feels bad all the same, with the more unreasonable half of his mind ready to offer to do Jirou's laundry in return.

"It doesn't matter much to me, but that's not the case for you, is it?"

The weight in his chest hasn't completely set. He could feel, almost, viscerally, the two-tile distance Jirou consciously maintains

His staggered draw of breath is more of an answer than anything he says afterwards.

"_No, I―_" Rui catches himself, stops, for a moment, before continuing, quieter. "Doesn't it hurt for you, too?"

"_Ah… Hmm,_ that's a start? I guess?" Jirou's reply comes just as soft, tapering off into a chuckle, nervously scratching the back of his neck.

"What do you mean?"

"A little roundabout, but that's the first time you've shown anything remotely close to what you're actually feeling." _Not that I'm one to say anything about that,_ Rui could almost see him mumble as an afterthought.

Jirou is painfully awkward, uncomfortable, even, but Rui thinks that this might be the only time so far that Jirou attempts to look ― _really look _― at him.

"I'd say that deserves a six out of ten. Definitely an effort."

It's perhaps his first time catching a full glimpse of Jirou, too, his hair pushed back by a passing wind, brushing over the tips of his ears.

All this, even though they're colleagues.

Even though they see each other every day.

Even though their desks in the faculty room are opposite one another.

_It's odd,_ Rui feels like he should have known more of him.

"You're oddly talkative today, Mister Yamashita," he laughs, finally, slouching back against the windowsill.

"That so?" Jirou averts his eyes again ― this time to the overhead lights. The past ten minutes of progress doesn't negate years of habit, it seems. "I wonder if it's because a certain somebody decided to be as well?"

"Hey, don't bully! I'm always talkative!" Rui is well within his rights to say that it's not quite completely his fault.

Jirou is as much to blame as he is.

"Not in the way that matters," he says, simply.

It's a learning process for the both of them.

"Ohh…" Rui knows he isn't pulling a fast one on anyone, but it's worth a try. He sticks his tongue out, sheepish, as he scratches the side of his jaw. "_Heheh._"

He taps his feet together, toes the line down the closest tile to his right as they begin to settle. The faraway bustle and thrum of goodbyes from the schoolyard forms a cadence, arrhythmic as it is, gentle, in the air around them.

Jirou is here next to him.

Rui wonders if it's out of consideration. He flits his eyes down, chances a quick peek towards Jirou's sleeves and then up forwards again, straight ahead.

If Jirou is worried, then, Rui thinks he doesn't have anymore reason to be. Just like he shouldn't have had a reason rush out of the science prep the way he did for him earlier, either.

The sky outside has begun to change colour, light streaming through the glass panes taking the shadows under his shoes further across the floor.

He thinks he might have heard the occasional odd pairs of footsteps from the floor below, teachers taking a quick trip back to the office to pack up as the crowd outside trickles down.

_Looks like most of their students have decided to call it a day, then._

Rui sighs. There's little chance of anyone stumbling into this secluded corner on the third floor, especially on a day like this, but Rui hopes his eyes aren't swollen, or at least, that the corners aren't as red as he feels they might be.

_Heading home right now doesn't sound like too bad of an idea. _

_He's not sure if he really wants to, though._

"Say, Rui?" Jirou says, suddenly.

Rui startles, turns, slow ― quiet, still ― catches the way Jirou's jaw tightens, his lips pursed. A part of him wonders if he hadn't meant for him to hear.

"Why did you want to be a teacher in the first place?"

* * *

_It's not here, either._

Rui swivels on his heel.

He turns back, to face his grandparents behind the ticket gates, still waiting for him there, all sunshine and doting patience.

The familiar smell of the sea wafts through, from under the station entrance overhang. Yokosuka is _home_, he'll miss it, sure, but he thinks he should feel something _more._

Tapping in isn't anything out of the ordinary. He takes this line everyday to school for the last three years, after all. Just that, this time, he's going to stay, past his usual stop, for a while longer, a little ways further.

He doesn't feel anything, either, when he offers a last, small wave goodbye.

Neither when he turns forward, hitching his backpack up his shoulder.

Nor when he steps off the platform, speakers crackling, onto a sparsely crowded midday traincar.

Surely, there should be more to it than this. More than the conscious, visible distance he's grown used to, leaning back against the handrail attached to the end of the bench, watching expanse of the sea through the window as the train runs along the coastline.

Tokyo isn't too vastly different, he finds. Considerably denser than what he's used to in Kanagawa. Less small, empty parks every few blocks.

More people, definitely, but he still feels the ghost of some two-feet circumference around. It's palpable space, despite mostly being air, and more likely, part his own unfounded imagination, but it's a gap, nonetheless, one he never seems to figure out how to bridge.

Or, alternatively, how to exist comfortably within, for that matter.

_It's probably not going to be here, either._

But like hell if he's not going to try his damnest to make the best out of it― as per the Rui Usual, how Grandpa had always taught him to, growing up.

He jerks himself forward, balancing on the balls of his feet as he inhales, sharp, deep, his grip tight around the straps of his bag.

Opening the front door, stepping into the _genkan_ of his new dorm, Maita Rui smiles his best sunflower smile.

* * *

At about two and a half times the earth's gravity, Rui could see how Jupiter lives up to their namesake. He's one out of one-thousand-three-hundred seats, but there isn't a second where he feels alone, lost in a crowd. 

The energy of the audience is a direct reply to how much of themselves they put forward, on stage and in their performance. 

Rui finds himself mesmerised in a stupor, his hold on his penlight slack.

_This is what he has been looking for._ _This sense of belonging._

For the longest time, a vague, deep-seated yearning over seemingly nothing, and he finds it in tangible shape, at a live house concert tucked away in the corners of Shibuya. 

Hokuto's presence feels like a side of him that he should have known earlier than this. This Hokuto is the most comfortable Rui has seen him, and he wonders if it's out of lack of trying, on his part. Jupiter is built entirely through connections ― between their members, extending outwards towards their fans, and then the fans, amongst themselves. 

Hokuto as he is performing on stage, is a direct mirror of his surroundings accepting him.

For the first time, Rui feels like he's welcomed within that space.

* * *

"It's not as far away as you think it is, Michael." Hokuto picks at the fallen petals by Rui's side of the bench, starts collecting them, one by one, onto a cupped palm. 

Orange gerberas are one of Rui's favourites. He doesn't think he had mentioned this to any of his underclassmen, but Hokuto had always been full of surprises. 

"Honestly, I think you're a lot better at it than I am."_ I don't think I would be talking to you like this, had you not be the way you are,_ left unspoken. "You'd definitely be a wonderful teacher, among other things."

Sotobori Park at night is still fairly busy ― idle chatter, office workers taking a short detour before their walk home, the Sobu Line passing every so often, raised tracks somewhere uphill behind them. Streetlamps aren't sparse, either. Rui could clearly see the detail on his shoes, and looking up doesn't give him much of a view of the stars. 

"I sure hope so!" _That would be one of them, at least. _Rui hugs the bouquet of gerberas closer, holds down a chortle, as the velvety petals tickle at his skin.

"The fact that you don't even realise it!" Hokuto starts stacking the loose petals on top of Rui's head, initially in jest, but fully engrossed now. Ijuuin Hokuto indulging in modest forms of entertaining himself. What a concept. "You really are something else, Michael." 

"I really can't tell whether you're praising me or not," Rui huffs, indignant, puffing out his cheeks.

"I wonder!" Hokuto laughs, pleasantly, skittering too close to _patronising._

Honestly, Rui can't blame most of his friends for forgetting that he's the older one between the two, but on some days, the durability of his pride depends on astral alignments, probably. 

"For what it's worth, though?" Hokuto's voice turns sombre, slow, as he places the last petal down. "Thank you, for a lot of things. And, I'm sure you'll find what you're looking for there."

He lets a passing breeze carry a shower of orange, cascading over Rui's shoulders.

"Congratulations on graduating, Maita-senpai." 

* * *

"You really do shine the brightest when you're on stage, Hokuto."

Rui closes one eye, pretends to catch dusts of airborne embers on palm of his hand.

"You shine pretty bright yourself, Michael." 

Other than the bonfire from the inner yard below, the science prep room is dark, fluorescent lamps left unlit. The window railing is cold under his arms. Rui slumps down, presses his cheeks against the surface. 

He hears Hokuto sigh from where he is next to him. 

"So," He starts. "Does it feel closer than it did before?"

Rui lets the soft sound of crackling flames stretch between them.

"I know I said it wouldn't be far, but you don't need to rush," Hokuto continues.

"Just a little bit more, I think," Rui says, after a few more beats of silence. He straightens up, turns to him with a half-hearted grin, hardly reassuring, and then shifts his gaze inside before he could discern more out of his expression.

Rui knows more than anyone, how dangerously perceptive Hokuto could be.

The festivities behind them reaches a crescendo ― footsteps in a dance, white noise, folk music filtering through the speakers of their school's old tape recorder.

He lets the low hum pulsate up along the walls, onto the pads of his fingers. Rui catches the outline of Jirou's desk when he looks up, chuckles, quiet, at the sight of his usual labcoat thrown haphazardly over the back of his chair. 

"At least, I know I want to stay here for a while longer." 

The fact that it isn't a lie, should be enough, for now.

* * *

_'We might stand to leave a stronger impression. _ _As idols, we could deliver the message we've been wanting to send our students.'_

That one autumn afternoon, Michio had started a spark. For a moment, Rui stands there, dazed, as sunlight falls down against the faculty room door. 

He has seen that same fervour before ― Hokuto had that same look when he had told him that he's debuting all those years ago. 

Rui wonders, if he's ever going to be capable of showing that much passion and zeal, a feverish kind of resolve to dive in headfirst, steadfast earnestness that he has seen throughout the people he has met, but has never experienced on his own. 

His breath comes a little short, an answer cutting straight into the air faster than his thoughts could take him. 

He thinks, he might want to try.

He just has to take the initial step forward.

Maybe, somewhere along the journey, Rui would find himself where they are too, face to face with his dreams. 

* * *

"_I'm running out of time!_"

Cardboard sets, cable works, stage equipment stowed away, lights, loom tall over him. Rui looks down, under the weight of the shadows. 

Jirou and Michio stands in front of him, a line in the light between them, obscuring him partway from the rest of the bustle of the some good distance behind them.

Rui steps back a shy few centimetres.

The tip of his shoes are darker, now. Neither of them should be able to make out the curves of his hands like this, knuckles white, chequered tweed waistcoat bunched at the hem. 

"I didn't mean to―" It's hard to breathe. He feels a twinge up his chest, hitching at his throat, coiling tight. "I'm sorry. You're right, this isn't like me at all."

He laughs, dry, an attempt at brushing it all aside.

"It's just... It's weird isn't it?" His voice trembles instead, strained. Looking aside gives himself the pretence of hiding away, eyes where Jirou nor Michio could see.

He doesn't think he could show them a part himself he can't quite grasp yet either.

"This..." He tries, though. "Is new to me, too." 

His chuckle comes out lighter, as if some weight is slowly being lifted, the more he speaks. _He's learning so many things today, _in the back of his mind, offhand self-derision.

Although, he would much rather life lessons to bite him in the ass at a less decisive time, and definitely not while in a foreign country some thousand nautical miles away from the privacy of his apartment. 

"I don't think I've ever felt this frustrated before."

Rui had always known that he's more than just reasonably stubborn, but this time, he has an inkling that this might not be a simple case of not being able to pick up a new skill. He should be used to that. Despite how he carries himself, Rui is an adult. Inadequacy isn't a stranger as much as it is an occasional drinking buddy.

_He doesn't understand,_ but for once, it's a little easier, when he's not alone and figuring it out as he goes. 

"It might be because I_ wanted_ to be able to do this." _Which isn't very like him at all. _Expectation wasn't something he ever had to worry about.

He wonders, if it's exactly because of that ― that he _wanted, _genuinely, wholeheartedly,_ wanted, _to be able to do his best, to be able to respond accordingly, to those same expectations put upon him. 

It didn't start out as pressure, when he had decided to enrol at that dealer school. It was excitement, over the possible chance that at the end, after putting so much of himself into this, he would have a chance to be heard.

"_Ah_." Rui stops, thinks that he might have come closer to comprehending the warmth around his eyes, the ache in his cheeks, this breathless desperation that had left him gasping to scream. 

"Is this what you guys meant?" he whispers, around the first signs of a smile tugging at his lips.

_After all, he all he wanted― _

He braves a peak, over Jirou and Michio's shoulders, incandescent lamps, a single point down the backdrop, opposite the petal hood of the camera lens, a cut from a scene. An outsider's point of view, a space that's undeniably larger than two-feet around, but somehow, looking in like this, Rui feels closer, to everyone that would see him on the other side of the screen.

_―was for his voice to reach them. _

"Do you think you'll be alright now?" Jirou asks.

"Yup!" Rui chirps, makes a show of stretching his arms out and flexing. "All revved up to go and practice some more now!"

"Then that's good." Michio nods, his smile indulgent, a show of encouragement and reassurance. "It'd do you well to realise that none of your grievances are for naught. It's commendable that you bounce back quickly, Maita-kun."

"_Ahahah... _More like it'd be trouble if I didn't..." He laughs, somewhat embarrassed. 

It's going to take a while, until he gets used to being part of something ― the two of them a constant, their presence the gravity that pulls him in.

Always,_ always,_ he'll find his way back to them.

"But, before I go..." Rui laces his fingers behind his back as he looks up, to the both of them . "Do you think you could say my name again?"

* * *

_Rui._

He jolts. _That can't be right._ Clearly, he had fallen asleep standing, at some point, because surely, he must have had heard that wrong, because, _Rui._

He pinches the side of his thigh, as subtly as he could, just in case Jirou turns towards him, barely stops a small squeak, hesitant as he points a finger to himself.

Even this early in the beginning of March, the sky through the school windows shouldn't have changed that much this quickly, yet, the puddle of light under his feet tints a deep dusk, pink around the edges.

_Rui,_ Jirou had said.

There shouldn't be any other explanation other than that he must have had, somehow, definitely, fallen asleep somewhere along the way.

His thigh does hurt, though ― and he feels his chest swell, cheeks warm, aching, a grin, bright, _bright,_ bubbling forth as he barrels himself against Jirou.

"_Mister Yamashita!_" Rui all but sobs.

_Heck,_ Jirou had pretty much already let him use his sleeves as a tissue, what's a few more tear stains onto his lapel going to do?

"_Whoa―_ wha―?" Jirou yelps, fumbles a few steps backwards, struggling to find his footing under Rui's added weight. "What happened? What's wrong?"

Rui barely manages more than a mishmash of unintelligible syllables, muffled by cotton linen.

"_Ahh."_ He feels Jirou chuckle ― realisation, perhaps, maybe a hint of endearment ― a murmur of his breath across the top of his head. "So you're actually this kind of kid after all, huh, Maita-sensei?"

Jirou's hands are just as gentle, patting him, weaving his fingers through stray strands of his hair.

"_Rui!_" he huffs.

"Yes, yes," A soft, nonchalant drawl. "Sorry about that, Rui."

"You only need to say 'yes' once," into Jirou's shirt more than not, nuzzling further.

"Yes, sir," Jirou replies, simple.

* * *

"I wonder if I should introduce you to my grandparents…"

It's the winter of their second year as idols. Jirou stops mid-way, his chopstick full of mochi hanging awkwardly between his open mouth and the bowl of _zenzai_ in his hand.

None of them are actually turned towards the television screen, where Dramatic Stars are performing at the _Kouhaku Uta Gassen._

Jirou's old rickety kotatsu clicks and whirrs for dear life.

"Huh?" he asks.

"What?" Rui responds, in turn.

"So suddenly?" More level than Jirou probably had intended.

"It's the new years!" Rui says, simply, as if its the natural progression of this conversation. "And I've not seen them in a hot minute, now that I think about it― _Oh! _My older sister's probably home, too."

"You…" Jirou plops his mochi back down into his bowl, which he quickly sets aside. Shifting in his seat, he turns to face Rui in proper _seiza. _"You do know that's not what I meant, right?"

"Yup!" Absolutely no remorse.

* * *

"Did I ever give you an answer?"

He pauses in his assigned task of filing through the clothes drawer for their little impromptu packing assembly line.

"To which question?" Jirou doesn't deign to look at him as he snorts, maintains his pace in folding Rui's cardigans into an sports bag.

The worst part is that Rui can't find it in himself to be the slightest bit offended. He's not lacking in self-awareness to know exactly how far down he still is in the scale between _serial offender_ and _there was an attempt._

Rather than going through the artfully immaculate feints, all the seamless, meticulously calculated conversational circumnavigation he has executed from the dawn of time and since, he fingerguns Jirou in the back where he can't see him.

_Okay, but seriously,_ laughing quietly to himself, Rui continues, "In my first year as a teacher, you asked me why I wanted to become a teacher, right?"

"_Hmm,_" Jirou doesn't miss a beat in seguing from sweaters into sock rolling, now. Although, to his credit, he did sound genuinely curious. Rui will never understand how terrible Jirou is at multitasking when this is truly, a form of talent on its own. "Now that you mention it…"

"You know." He folds his hands, gingerly over his lap. "It's funny, because Mister Hazama wanted to become an idol after watching Jupiter's performance."

Jirou stays quiet, offers a small incline of his head, for Rui to elaborate.

"I thought of becoming a teacher seeing their pre-debut live." The memory still makes him smile. Green penlights, a live house crowd so unthinkably small, knowing Jupiter as they currently are, the warmth seeping into him knowing, that for each and every one of the attendees within that space, there's a place for him, too. "Idols are amazing, huh?"

"Says an idol himself," Jirou snickers. He dusts his hands off, a perfunctory pat onto the top of their unzipped bag, before finally turning in his seat, fully facing Rui.

"Curious, isn't it!" Rui's toothy grin is a uncharacteristically shy as he starts to play with his fingers, tracing the along the inner edge of the open drawer until he reaches an old picture book he keeps hidden away at the bottom.

He pulls it out, feather light, barely a brush against his skin, holds it, just as carefully, to his chest.

Tucked behind the age-worn cover are coloured envelopes, pressed sweet peas, bush clovers between the pages. His hand quivers, thumbing through familiar names that no doubt Jirou would also instantly recognise.

"They remember me," he says, solemn.

In a small corner of his mind, he wonders if it's alright, for him to feel this much pride, this much love.

"A part of me stayed with them."

His cheeks ache. He has received so much already. It's unfair, he thinks, when he's still learning to give back ― or to give at all, rather.

"My voice reached them." He's in disbelief, really, and would always be, most likely, each time he goes through each and every one of his students' letters. "I'm so _glad._"

His biggest fear was that most of them would only remember him as that weird assistant teacher in their last year, and yet―

"I wouldn't have gotten here, if it wasn't for you, or Mister Hazama, or Hokuto, _everyone,_ but―"

_And yet―_

Finally, he could say, resolute, "This is where I belong."

_His dream came true, instead._

It's his own weight that grounds him in the end, both feet nestled firmly onto a harbour that took little more than the tips of his fingers, reaching out, bridging the stars towards the waves calling his name.

* * *

Rui's childhood home in Kamoi, Yokosuka, is just uphill from Cape Kannon. Winters aren't particularly cold in neither Tokyo nor Kanagawa, but the strong offshore wind makes him regret going out in pyjamas, his scarf haphazard around his neck, and Jirou's overcoat over his shoulder.

He can't imagine how miserable Jirou must feel in comparison ― all five sweaters he had packed with him on his person.

"Didn't you grow up in Ishikawa?" Rui stops to look back, and wait, for Jirou to hobble down onto the footpath behind the Kannonzaki lighthouse.

Jirou shrugs, somewhere under those layers. He sneezes, small, cute, into his shoulder, as soon as he falls into step next to Rui. "It's a mystery how I survived into adulthood."

"I'm sorry." He really is, brows furrowed even through the bubble of excitement he can't quite hold back. "I really wanted to do this."

One hand outstretched for Jirou to take, he holds his phone with the other, pointing the flashlight at their feet, leading them to the end of the cobblestone pathway overlooking Tokyo Bay.

"I want you to be here for this." Then he laughs, soft, "You're always going along with our whims, one way or another."

"Eh, why not." Rui doesn't need to look at him to know that Jirou is struggling to keep his lips pressed thin, the exact same way he does every time he tries ― and fails ― to suppress a smile from breaking through. "This fits you a lot more."

"Thanks, Mister Yamashita." He casts him one last cheeky grin, squeezes tighter around Jirou's fingers before he turns away.

Outwards, further past the wooden fence, greets the open sea like an old friend. Summers he would spend as a child, traces of midday sunshine, sand between his toes surfing at Uraga Point.

The saline scent settles him down, clears his lungs.

He leans out far, on the tip of his toes.

Breathes.

All at once, eyes screwed shut, face flushed red, he lets go.

_"My name is Maita Rui! I am an Idol!!!"_

* * *

**Author's Note:**

> Not pictured: Jirou not fully realising Rui was going to do a cathartic scream of self affirmation, panics at the thought of getting apprehended for public disturbance.


End file.
